Weld commissioners choose Fort Lupton paper for legal ads

Sep. 23, 2013

Weld County Public Trustee Susie Velasquez. / The Weld County Public Trustee's Office

Written by

The Board of Weld County Commissioners announced recently that it selected The Fort Lupton Press as publisher of the Weld public trustee’s legal notices.

While bids also were submitted by The Greeley Tribune and The Windsor Beacon, which currently publishes legal notices, the Press came in as the lowest bidder, offering to publish each Weld County foreclosure process for $125.

Public Trustee Susie Velasquez originally announced she would reject the three newspapers’ bids in July and resolicited bids across the county.

According to Jennifer Finch, the information specialist and special projects manager for Weld County, Velasquez and the county staff who helped her with the bid process ultimately recommended Fort Lupton’s bid because it was the lowest.

“It is my understanding that the public trustee has to use either the state or the county bidding process when soliciting bids — in this case for legal notices,” Finch said in an email to the Beacon. “She chose to use the county process, which is why it went in front of the board (of county commissioners).”

Velasquez was unavailable for immediate comment.

Kathy Jack-Romero, president and publisher of Coloradoan Media Group — which owns the Beacon — said the Beacon and Coloradoan have had a long-standing relationship with the Weld County trustees, handling legal advertisements for the county for several years.

“We prepared a bid that reduced our overall rate for the legal advertisements and changed the procedures to save the Trustee several hours in proofing time and manpower. We had hoped that this would be a win-win solution for both parties,” Jack-Romero said in an email. “We are disappointed, but we respect the decision of the Trustee and the Commissioners.

“We hope that we might be considered again for this business partnership in the near future.”